The present disclosure relates to a gas turbine engine and, more particularly, to Tangential On-Board Injectors.
Gas turbine engines, such as those that power modern commercial and military aircraft, generally include a compressor section to pressurize an airflow, a combustor section to burn a hydrocarbon fuel in the presence of the pressurized air, and a turbine section to extract energy from the resultant combustion gases. The hot gases expanded within the turbine section produce a gas stream across alternating rows of stationary turbine stator vanes and rotating turbine rotor blades produce power.
Internal secondary flow systems transfer cooling air that bypasses the combustor section to a turbine rotor assembly for subsequent distribution to the interior of the rotor blades through a tangential on-board injector (TOBI). Accelerating the cooling air through a nozzle, and swirling the air with the rotation of the turbine rotor, reduces the temperature of the cooling air as it is injected on board the turbine rotor.
The volume and direction of the cooling air are features of the secondary flow system effectiveness and overall engine performance. The secondary flow system should provide a desired metered amount of cooling air as additional cooling air will penalize efficiency of the engine, while too little cooling air may result in overheating of the rotating turbine disks, blades, and seals Additionally, the secondary flow system directs purge air within the engine to prevent hot gas ingestion in the turbine rim cavities. Typically, rotating Knife Edge (K/E) seals, in conjunction with honeycomb seal lands, are used to control the amount of purge mass flow needed to seal and purge cavities. Other seals such as brush seals and contact seals can be used for this purpose with varying sealing effectiveness; however a certain amount of purge mass flow is required to properly protect the turbine rotor from hot-gas ingestion at the rim cavities. Heat pickup due to passage heat conduction/convection, rotor cooling, and windage losses due to the rotation effects of the disks and rotating seals, increases the temperature of the purge flow as it passes through the engine. It is desirable to use this heated purge air to satisfy the rim cavity mass flow requirement, as its cooling effectiveness has been greatly reduced and no longer has ability to do further rotor/blade cooling.
The temperature of blade cooling air is negatively affected by the undesirable mixing of the cooling air with the purge air, which is air that flows past the various seals and cavities within the gas turbine engine towards the TOBI. When air exits the TOBI, the flow does not purely flow into the rotor/blade as rotor cavity purge air must flow across the TOBI discharge stream. The crossing flows mix, and pollutes the TOBI flow. The net result is the air flowing to the blade may be relatively hotter and thereby relatively less thermally efficient.